Modern organizations and entities manage large volumes of information in the form of files, e-mails, documents, file archives, etc. These information assets may be stored across a variety of information sources. Organizations typically make use of data-management systems to manage, sort, and/or categorize the various information sources that are managed by the organization. For example, a data-management system may track the identity, physical location, and/or type of each information source that is managed by the data-management system. Such data-management systems typically require a complete understanding of the information sources within their domain in order to provide full data-management capabilities.
However, organizations frequently make use of transient information sources, such as virtual machines. Moreover, more permanent information sources, such as servers, may be added or removed from an organization on a regular basis. Further, information sources may be geographically distant from each other, and different information sources may be supervised by different data-management systems. Some conventional methods of tracking information sources typically require manual input or management of source lists. Other conventional methods for synchronizing information across data-management systems may be prone to errors and may not capture information from a given information source. These shortcomings may result in an incomplete view of the information sources across an organization. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for automatically aggregating information-source metadata.